Chain abstraction: why it is needed and how it works

From a technical standpoint, the cryptocurrency industry is fragmented: individual blockchains operate independently and cannot interact without specialized third-party protocols, such as cross-chain bridges.

According to CoinGecko, the Web3 segment includes more than 140 Layer 1 blockchains*, none of which are directly connected. This creates difficulties for ordinary users who want to work with assets across different networks but lack the specialized skills to use cross-chain solutions.

* Layer 1 blockchain (Layer 1, L1) — a base, independent blockchain network that has its own consensus mechanism, set of validators or miners, and independently handles the confirmation and final recording of transactions. Other applications and infrastructure solutions can be built on top of such a blockchain, but the L1 itself does not depend on another blockchain to validate its transactions.

At the same time, demand for cross-chain transactions is growing steadily. Notable examples include NEAR Intents and Chainlink CCIP — protocols that address blockchain fragmentation at different levels. By the end of 2025, transaction volume through the NEAR Intents protocol had exceeded $7 billion. By September 2026, weekly transaction volume through Chainlink CCIP had reached $1.3 billion, representing growth of around 260% over the year. Meanwhile, cumulative transaction volume through Chainlink CCIP had surpassed $30 trillion.

To address the challenges of cross-chain transactions, developers introduced a new concept known as Chain Abstraction.

What is chain abstraction?

Chain abstraction is an approach to building Web3 services that hides the technical characteristics of individual blockchains from the user. Users do not need to manually select a network, understand the transaction route, switch between blockchains, or hold different native tokens to pay transaction fees — the required operations are performed automatically at the application and cross-chain infrastructure levels.

The core idea of chain abstraction is to make decentralized applications (dApps) as simple and convenient to use as conventional web services. One of the main goals of chain abstraction is to create an "abstracted," or multichain, environment in which users do not have to think about which blockchain network they are using to make a transaction.

The Ethereum community has discussed the concept of chain abstraction since the project's early days. Practical implementation of chain abstraction began in 2023, when the new ERC-4337 standard was introduced on Ethereum, allowing conventional wallets to be transformed into programmable smart accounts*.

* Smart Account — a programmable blockchain account whose behavior is governed by a smart contract. Unlike a conventional crypto wallet, a smart account can support additional features, such as paying transaction fees with another token, account recovery, batching multiple operations, and setting transaction limits.

By 2024, the first projects, such as NEAR Protocol, had begun developing infrastructure for implementing the chain abstraction concept.

How chain abstraction works

Within the Chain Abstraction concept, cross-chain infrastructure and the user interface represent two separate layers. To make chain abstraction easier to understand, compare it to paying with a bank card: a customer taps the card on a payment terminal and confirms the payment without thinking about which bank, payment system, or processing infrastructure handles the transaction.

At the core of Chain Abstraction is the separation between what the user wants to achieve — the intent — and how the operation will actually be executed — the resolve, or execution process.

In the traditional imperative model, users themselves specify or confirm the technical parameters of a transaction: they select the network, token, exchange protocol, and transfer route, while also paying the transaction fee using the native cryptocurrency of the corresponding blockchain. In other words, users have to understand not only the desired outcome of the transaction but also how it will be executed.

Under the chain abstraction concept, imperative transactions are replaced by intents: users declare which assets they want to exchange and in what amount, specifying only the desired outcome.

The intents are then executed by specialized agents known as resolvers. As a result, the exchange resembles a conventional transaction on a traditional exchange. In contrast, the underlying chain of transactions remains hidden "under the hood" — this is the fundamental principle of chain abstraction.

The second key component of chain abstraction is so-called universal accounts. Universal accounts are also called smart wallets.

The third key component of chain abstraction is cross-chain infrastructure, which includes a range of solutions designed to ensure secure, reliable cross-chain transactions.

Finally, chain abstraction is based on the principle of eliminating dependence on a specific cryptocurrency for paying network fees. In traditional blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, the native cryptocurrency — BTC, ETH, and SOL, respectively — is the only asset that can be used to pay transaction fees.

The chain abstraction concept uses an approach known as Paymasters, which allows users to pay network fees with different tokens.

Challenges of chain abstraction

One of the key challenges of chain abstraction is the risk of centralization. Universal interfaces that provide access to cross-chain infrastructure can become a single point of failure and, if compromised, may harm the cryptocurrency market.

The second risk associated with chain abstraction concerns security. The more blockchains integrated into cross-chain infrastructure, the harder it becomes to secure that infrastructure because individual protocols the different mechanisms.

Finally, the stable operation of cross-chain infrastructure under chain abstraction requires solving compatibility issues between different types of transactions. Otherwise, cross-chain transactions may fail, potentially resulting in the loss of funds.

Examples of protocols based on chain abstraction

NEAR Protocol

NEAR Protocol, launched back in 2020, became one of the first Layer 1 blockchains to implement the chain abstraction concept.

As of September 2026, NEAR Protocol ranks among the 30 largest blockchains by market capitalization, which exceeds $3.5 billion. By this metric, NEAR Protocol is also the largest infrastructure project based on chain abstraction.

Particle Network

Particle Network is a decentralized protocol that implements the chain abstraction concept through the use of a universal Web3 account that can be easily accessed via email.

Through Particle Network's universal Web3 account, users gain access to cross-chain infrastructure — a single "gateway" that includes the Bitcoin protocol and EVM networks*.

* EVM network — a blockchain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, the virtual environment in which Ethereum smart contracts are executed. This compatibility lets you use identical or nearly identical smart contracts, development tools, and Web3 applications across different networks. For example, an application originally developed for Ethereum can often be deployed relatively easily on BNB Chain, Avalanche, Polygon, or another EVM-compatible network. At the same time, EVM compatibility does not mean that all these blockchains are part of Ethereum: they may have their own validators, tokens, transaction fees, and consensus rules. What primarily unites them is a compatible smart-contract execution environment.

Arcana

In terms of implementing the chain abstraction concept, the Arcana protocol is similar to Particle Network but provides users with a broader range of cross-chain tools, including:

• A Web3 account with a unified interface;
• Gasless transactions;
• A module supporting email-based authentication;
• A specialized service that allows users to make transactions without cryptocurrency addresses.

LayerZero

LayerZero is a cross-chain protocol based on the chain abstraction concept that connects networks belonging to the Ethereum ecosystem, including Layer 2 solutions* such as Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism.

* Layer 2 solution (Layer 2, L2) — a network or protocol that operates on top of a base Layer 1 blockchain and is designed primarily to increase transaction speed and reduce transaction costs. Transactions are processed fully or partially outside the main network, while their results are subsequently recorded or confirmed on L1.

The Stargate solution was developed on top of the LayerZero protocol, allowing assets to be transferred between EVM blockchains.